All terrain recreational vehicles, also known as off-road vehicles, dune buggies, and sand rails were originally, used, often beaten up, conventional road vehicles that typically had outlived their useful lives as acceptable road vehicles and were converted for driving on off road, rough terrain, such as desert sand dunes. The development of off road, all terrain recreational vehicles appears to have begun and gained popularity and public notice with old Volkswagen beetles that were frequently converted to recreational off road vehicles, hence the name “dune buggy”. Hereinafter, “dune buggy” may be used generically to refer to recreational rough terrain vehicles or vehicles that share characteristics of recreational rough terrain vehicles.
Today, a large variety of kits are available that provide plans for do it yourself dune buggies, and many automotive manufacturers make and market different brands of dune buggies that may be adapted for different types of off road and on road driving. Among automotive manufactures that market dune buggies are by way of example: Polaris, USA; Honda, Harley Davidson, USA; Kawasaki Motors Corp, Suzuki, Berrien; and Peugeot, France. Dune buggies have also been adopted by the military, and specially designed dune buggies, such as the Advanced Light Strike Vehicle, produced by Chenowth Racing Products Inc, of San Diego USA, is in use by various Special Forces units.
A dune buggy often comprises a frame referred to as a “space frame” formed from welded and/or bolted, rectangular or circular, generally mandrel drawn, steel tubing, having a front wheel frame, a passenger compartment frame, and a rear wheel frame that are constructed on a base frame. The front wheel frame is configured to be mounted with a suspension system having control arms, which may be “A arms”, that couple to front wheel bearings to which steerable, front wheels of the dune buggy are mounted. For a dune buggy comprising a water cooled motor, the front wheel frame may be configured to house a radiator for cooling the motor. The rear frame provides mounting for a rear wheel suspension system having control arms that couple to rear wheel bearings to which motor driven rear wheels may be mounted. Often the rear frame houses the dune buggy motor that drives the rear wheels. The base frame is often a ladder frame.
Factory and home kit produced dune buggies are often modified by their users to adapt them to special terrains or to enhance their maneuverability and/or stability. Generally, desired modifications are made to increase a track width and/or change a wheel base of the dune buggies, and various kits and accessories are commercially available to make these modifications.